‘But those which turn only upon painful subtilties, which are affirmative, dogmatic and positive, which bend all facts and opinions to form and adjust them to certain preconceived principles and invariable measures; in fine, such as are thorny, arid, narrow and contentious, these are fatal in tendency, and cannot but abridge the life of those, who cultivate them. Of this class was the philosophy of the Peripatetics, and that also of the Scholastics.’ Tumultuous passions and corroding cares are two sources of evil influences, which philosophy avoids. Another influence, adverse to life, is that mental feebleness, which renders persons perpetually solicitous about their health, effeminate and unhappy. Fixing their thoughts intensely on the functions of life, those functions, that are subjects of this anxious inspection, labor. Imagining themselves sick, they soon become so. The undoubting confidence that we shall not be sick, is perhaps the best prophylactic for preserving health. I am ignorant of the exact influence of moral upon physical action, in relation to health. But of this I am confident, that it is prodigious; that physicians have not made it a sufficient element in their calculations, or employed it as they should; and that in future, under a wise and more philosophic direction, it may operate an immense result, both in restoring and preserving health. A man reads a letter, which announces misfortunes, or sinister events. His head turns. His appetite ceases. He becomes faint, and oppressed; and his life is in danger. No contagion, however, no physical blow has touched him. A thought has palsied his forces in a moment; and has successively deranged every spring of life. We have read of persons of feeble and uninformed mind, who have fallen sick, in consequence of the cruel sport of those, who have ingeniously alarmed their imagination, and cautiously indicated to them a train of fatal symptoms. Since imagination can thus certainly overturn our physical powers, why may it not, under certain regulations, restore them? Among the numberless recorded cases of cures, reputed miraculous, it is probable, that a great part may be accounted for on this principle.[17] Suppose a paralytic disciple of the school of miracles, whose head is exalted with ideas of the mystic power of certain holy men, and who is meditating on the succor which he expects from a divine interposition manifested in his favor. In an ecstasy of faith, he sees a minister of heaven descend enveloped in light, who bids him ‘arise, and walk.’ In a moment the unknown nervous energy, excited by the mysterious power of faith, touches the countless inert and relaxed movements. The man arises and walks. During the siege of Lyons, when bombs fell on the hospital, the terrified paralytics arose and fled.